Ruling puts next Bali trial in turmoil

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The trial tomorrow of the alleged financier of the Bali bombings will be the first case affected by Friday's landmark decision disallowing the law used to prosecute the bombers.

The lawyer representing Idris, the alleged money man, said the Constitutional Court decision meant prosecutors may have to abandon the case.

Ms Sarworini said her client was facing court over involvement in the Bali and Marriott Hotel bombings but prosecutors had combined the charges into one indictment document.

The indictment relies in large part on law No. 16 2003, the law the Constitutional Court disallowed because it was applied retrospectively.

"The decision says that the law is illegal so what should we do?" Ms Sarworini asked yesterday. "Should we go back and restart by only using law No. 15 (a related terrorism law)? And how would that work?"

Ms Sarworini said the lawyers representing Idris would try to read the decision today and then decide what application to make to the court tomorrow.

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But she admitted she was confused as Indonesia has no procedures for implementing the decisions of the new Constitutional Court.

The lawyer who won Friday's case, Wirawan Adnan, said yesterday that there are 70 people directly and indirectly implicated in the Bali bombings, including the 32 already convicted. All of them had been or were being prosecuted under the law No. 16 2003.

Because of the confusion about how the decision should now be applied, he said he would wait 30 days for authorities to release his clients, including the applicant in Friday's case, Masykur Abdul Kadir.

"They have to voluntarily release them for the sake of the law," he said

If his clients were not released, he would seek judicial reviews in the Supreme Court to have the convictions overturned.

Mr Adnan said four of his clients, including the three on death row - Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Muklas - had each made two separate appeals to the Supreme Court.

One appeal was against their verdicts and the other was based on the argument that law No. 16 2003 was illegal because it was retrospective. While the appeals against the verdicts had been dismissed, the decision on the retrospective applications are still pending.

"We are still waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court. After Friday's decision it's now impossible for them to deny our appeals," Mr Adnan said.

Officials from various government departments will meet today to try to work out how to ensure that the Bali bombers face their full punishments.

The director of the Asian Law Centre at Melbourne University, Dr Tim Lindsey, said that all of the Bali convictions will inevitably be overturned and new charges will have to be laid under existing criminal law.

But Justice Minister Yusril Mahendra said getting convictions under existing law could be difficult and the retrospective terrorism law was only approved because other laws were considered inadequate.

"At the time we gave up," he said, "because there were obstacles regarding legal material and legal procedures on arrest, the status of intelligence reports, and telephone intercepts which are not regulated in the codes of conduct for criminal cases."